Baltasar Lopes da Silva

Who is Baltasar Lopes da Silva?

Baltasar Lopes da Silva was born in Calejão on the island of São Nicolau and became one of the central figures of twentieth-century Cape Verdean literature. He studied at the seminary in Ribeira Brava before continuing his education at the University of Lisbon, and he wrote both in Portuguese and in Cape Verdean Creole, sometimes under the pen name Osvaldo Alcântara. In 1936, together with fellow writers Jorge Barbosa and Manuel Lopes, he founded the literary journal Claridade, which gave voice to a distinctly Cape Verdean literature addressing drought, famine, poverty, and emigration, and is regarded as the foundation of modern Cape Verdean letters. In 1947 he published Chiquinho, widely considered the greatest Cape Verdean novel, a coming-of-age story that captures the customs, landscapes, and hard realities of early twentieth-century island life and the emigration many Cape Verdeans were forced into. He was also a serious linguist, publishing O dialecto crioulo de Cabo Verde, an early scholarly study of Cape Verdean Creole grammar and dialects, and his portrait later appeared on the Cape Verdean 500-escudo banknote in recognition of his literary and linguistic legacy.

Sources: Wikipedia, "Baltasar Lopes da Silva" · Britannica, "Baltasar Lopes" · African Studies Centre Leiden, "Baltasar Lopes da Silva"